News by Subject Biology

In lab tests, researchers found that an optimized ankle exoskeleton system increased participants' walking speed by about 40 percent compared with their regular speed. The researchers hope someday to help restore walking speed in older adults.

New research indicates that the common fruit fly can travel tens of kilometers in a single flight when in search of food.

Neuroscience researchers at Mayo Clinic Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, U.S., the Health and Technology District and Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada have published the latest results of their ongoing multi-year hockey concussion study examining changes in subconcussive cognitive brain function in male youth ice hockey players. The research showed that repetitive subconcussive impacts triggered compounding effects in brain function changes.

Praying mantises are bizarre insects, yet many aspects of their biology remain unknown. Meanwhile, scientists from the Ruhr-University and the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology discovered that females of a South American species protrude a Y-shaped organ on their backs to release pheromones and attract males. Found in none of the over 2,500 species of praying mantises worldwide, the behaviour is reported for the first time in the peer-reviewed scientific Journal of Orthoptera Research.

Female baboons lead extremely challenging lives that leave some of them with chronically high levels of glucocorticoid stress hormones. A new study appearing 21 April in Science Advances shows that female baboons with high life-long levels of glucocorticoids, the hormones involved in the 'fight or flight' response, have a greater risk of dying than those with lower levels. Modeling showed the high stress levels may cost 25 percent of lifespan.